Dragon on a Pedestal (12 page)

Finally they reached the highest level, where the sun shone down, and here the network of branches was so thick and so intertwined, and the leaves so many and strong, that the visitors could safely walk anywhere. The top of the tree was roughly level, with the mounds of individual branches resembling hills; the outermost boughs rose higher to form a kind of retaining wall that prevented them from falling off. The leaves were of varied colors here, too, so that it was more like a regular landscape.

There were some large, individual leaves projecting from the nether mass of the treescape, with black patterns on them. The nearest one was marked WELCOME TO COVEN-TREE, and below it a smaller leaf was marked DO NOT LITTER. Ivy was too young to read, and the Gap Dragon had never learned how, so they ignored these leaves.

Ahead was a series of leafy cages containing strange animals. The sign-leaf by the first said GI-ANTS. Inside were several huge and strange insects, each as big as Ivy herself. Their bodies resembled those of ant lions, but their heads were strange. Ivy pondered a moment, then managed to remember where she had seen creatures like these before. “In a picture!—” she exclaimed. “In a book of weird Mundane monsters. Mommy called them ‘ants.’ They must be a crossbreed of ant lions and, and—” But here she stalled; she could not figure out what could account for the changed heads. “But I thought they were smaller.”

Stanley peered at the odd creatures, as fascinated as Ivy was. One of the huge ants snapped its mandibles at the Dragon, and Stanley jetted some steam back at it. The ant waved its long antennae, and Stanley switched his tail. Mundane monsters made him uncomfortable; they simply weren’t natural.

The next cage was labeled MA-MOTHS. Inside were the biggest night butterflies Ivy had ever seen, with furry antennae and folded dark wings. They carried no butter, however. They seemed to be asleep, though it was day.

Another cage contained an ENOR-MOUSE crunching up a huge chunk of cheese. Others had TREMEN-DOES, which were large, split-hoofed animals, vaguely like the yak, eating leaves; GIGAN-TICS sucking on a big bloodroot; STUPEN-DOES, even larger than the other does; and IM-MENS, which were ogre-sized men.

Ivy paused at the last exhibit. It didn’t seem right to her for any type of men to be imprisoned like this. Her mind was small, so her thoughts translated to action very quickly. “Stanley, let’s let these creatures go,” she said.

The dragon was willing. He jetted so fierce a shot of steam at the leafy lock in the IM-MENS cage that it melted, and the gate swung open. The mens crowded out, pleased with their new freedom.

Ivy and Stanley went back along the cages, melting each lock, having found out how easy it was to free the exhibits. Soon all the confined creatures were free, charging about madly. There was such pandemonium that Ivy and Stanley were daunted. They retreated to the very edge of the coven-tree, climbing the retaining wall. This wall intersected the wall of an adjacent tree where things were less hectic, so they jumped across, leaving the confusion behind.

This new tree was very pretty. WELCOME TO PAGEAN-TREE, its leaf-sign said, and of course they ignored it. They were too interested in all the pretty colors of the foliage, much brighter than the leaves of the last tree, and in the remarkable forms this new foliage assumed.

There were also marching bands, each band a strip of cloth or cord or rubber with little legs that tramped along at a measured pace, somewhat the way the tough babies of the infant-tree had marched. Ivy was entranced, and Stanley became interested, too, since she thought he would be.

But after a while, even the splendors of the pagean-tree palled, for life was more than pageans, and they jumped to the foliage of still another tree. This was, its sign said, a DATE PALM, its fronds representing all the days of the year. Day lilies grew in little cups of earth, but only one bloomed each day, so that the precise date was always marked. In the very center grew a large century plant, its thick, long, green leaves spreading out in a globe, spiked along the sides and tips.

In the middle of the century plant was something really fascinating. It seemed to be another plant with straight stalks clothed by many small, round, bright leaves that glittered in the sunlight like golden coins. “Ooooh, pretty!” Ivy exclaimed. “I want one!” Little girls resembled big cranes in this respect; they liked pretty things.

She tried to get in to the coin plant, but the spurs of the century plant prevented her. The spurs were very sturdy, so she could not simply push them aside. Stanley helped, steaming each spur so that it turned soft, which enabled Ivy to pass. But progress was slow, for there were many spurs. Stanley had to stay right with her, because as soon as the two of them passed, the spurs became hard again. Stanley tried to chew off a leaf, but its juices were like those of a zombie, and he quickly desisted before he got sick. So they wriggled and scrambled their way through the many thick leaves with Stanley expending much steam, until at last they arrived at the bright plant in the very center.

Ivy reached for a coin, a smile of innocent delight on her face. But the moment her little fingers touched the golden leaf, there was a flare of light
from the plant that bathed both girl and dragon, making the entire scene glow eerily. It was a glow Ivy’s mother had seen in a vision but had not quite understood, for it was only an incidental part of the vision.

The two of them froze exactly as they were, becoming living statues, unmoving, unbreathing.

They had been caught by one of the least dramatic but most powerful plants in Xanth, the one that ultimately governed and brought down almost every other living creature: thyme.

T
he storm had cleared by morning, but it had had its revenge on Irene by wiping out all conceivable tracks and traces and so battering the vegetation that it could not remember the events of the day before. The trail was now thoroughly cold and wet.

In addition, the sun was laggard about penetrating the cloud cover, so Irene couldn’t dry her clothing properly. She grew new bloomers and slippers, and from dry towels fashioned a skirt and jacket, cut and buttoned appropriately. She wasn’t entirely comfortable, but she set out bravely enough, making Grundy query every plant in the region, just in case. None of them remembered Ivy.

“I hesitate to suggest this,” Chem began, “but—”

“Then
don’t
suggest it!” Irene snapped. She knew what the centaur was going to say—that something had captured Ivy and taken her away, so that the little girl might never be found. But the ivy plant remained green, signaling the child’s health, and Irene would not rest until she rescued her.

They searched for hours. At one point a griffin spied the party and swooped down for a closer look. Griffins were among the most feared creatures of the wilderness, as they possessed the bodies of lions and the wings of eagles and were always hungry and ferocious. But Irene gave this one no shrift. She hurled down a boxwood seed and ordered it to grow.

The plant grew into a small tree with many hard, wooden gnarls. It moved these gnarls about, boxing at the griffin. The boxwood was aggressive; it liked physical contact. Only a few of these attacks were necessary before the animal fled.

Finally Grundy got a lead. “This anchor plant saw her! It’s very hard to dislodge, so the rain couldn’t wash out its memory. But—”

“But what?” Irene cried, dashing over.

“But she had a companion,” the golem said reluctantly. “Not the yak.”

“But she’s all right!” Irene said, as if daring the golem to deny it.

“Yes. But the creature she met—”

“It didn’t attack her!” Irene said with the same defiance. Her ivy plant remained vigorous, reassuring her.

“Not exactly …”

“Perhaps I had better question him—” Chem offered.

But Irene would have none of the centaur’s levelheadedness. An uncomfortable night, physically and emotionally, had shortened her fuse, and she had never been especially noted for her patience. “Out with it, knothead! What creature?”

“It sounds like the Gap Dragon.”

Now Irene reacted. She had been braced for anything. Anything but this. She fell back against Chem, almost collapsing. The centaur grabbed her to support her. “The—Gap—?”

“Reduced,” Grundy said quickly. “Remember, you told us it got doused with Youth elixir and youthened into babyhood, just like Humfrey.”

“But the G-Gap Dragon!” Irene protested. “The most vicious monster in Xanth! No matter what size it is now!”

“Yes. The same.”

Irene nerved herself. “What happened?”

Grundy queried the anchor plant. “They seem to have made friends,” he reported doubtfully. “They walked away together.”

“The Gap Dragon has no friends!” Irene said, perversely arguing with him. “It’s a loner. It eats everything it catches.”

“That can’t be entirely true,” Chem said. “Unless the dragon is immortal, it must have had parents, and it will have to breed to reproduce itself. So there must be a place in its scheme for companionship. And now it has been rejuvenated. It could indeed be immortal, if it uses the Fountain of Youth regularly—but I doubt that is the case. Regardless, it could be lonely, as a child in that situation would be.”

“Some child!” Grundy exclaimed.

“Children do differ from adults,” the centaur insisted. “They are more impressionable, more open—”

“More likely the dragon just didn’t happen to be hungry at the moment, so it saved her for the next meal,” Grundy suggested helpfully.

Chem aimed a forehoof at the golem but missed. Irene, just beginning to believe that her child might possibly be all right, suffered a renewed pang. The Gap Dragon was a scheming, canny creature, smarter than the average dragon. “We had better catch up to them soon!” she said grimly.

They traced the youngsters to an infant-tree. Several of the tough babies remembered the pair. “ ‘Sure we chased ’em,’ ” Grundy translated. “The beast really steamed us! We don’t take that shift from anyone!”

“But where did they go?” Irene demanded.

“What’s it to you, old dame?” another baby asked, hanging loose as the golem translated.

“Just answer the question, you little swinger,” Irene said sternly.

The baby paused in its swinging. “They fled beyond the witch’s tree,” it said. “By the time we made a forced-march there, the trail was cold. We’ve got better things to do than hunt for dummies.”

“One of those dummies was my daughter!” Irene exclaimed angrily.

“Tough shift, sister,” the infant retorted.

“I’ll tough-shift
you
, you fat brat!” Irene cried. She threw down a seed. “Grow!”

The seed sprouted into a cowslip plant. In moments it was depositing slippery and smelly cow-chips all around. Next time the infants marched, they would find themselves slipping in truly shiftless stuff.

“That wasn’t nice, Irene,” Grundy said smugly. He appreciated dirt, no matter who flung it.

“Just tend to your business, golem, or I’ll grow a wart plant on your head!”

Grundy shut up and tended to his business.

But the trail was indeed cold. The witch’s tree was distracted by an infestation of large bugs or wild animals in its foliage and wouldn’t answer Grundy’s query. Apparently the bugs had been confined and recently released, for they were raising havoc in the upper foliage. The grass below the tree was washed out. So the party simply had to go on, casting about as before, hoping to find a plant or tree that remembered a child and a little dragon.

They got beyond the region where it had rained, but still there was no clue. Irene was too stubborn to admit they had lost the trail entirely and were probably going in the wrong direction. Her daughter had to be out here somewhere!

They came to a bleak area, yellowish overall, where normal trees gave way to strange, thick-trunked growths from which grew long, thin, grasslike leaves with upright spikes at the top bearing whitish flowers. Grundy queried one and discovered it was a grasstree named Xanthorrhoed.

“Now this is interesting,” Chem said. Centaurs were chronically fascinated by unusual fauna and flora. “Xanthorrhoed is one of the really primitive, fundamental plants of Xanth, as can be told from its name.”

“Xanth-horrid?” Irene asked. “I don’t have any seed for that.”

“Perhaps you should add some to your collection. I believe this type of plant is associated with—”

“Witches,” a new voice said. Irene looked around to see a sallow, yellow, old woman. Distracted by the grasstree, she had not seen the woman approach. “What are you creatures doing in my garden?”

“I’m looking for a child,” Irene said shortly. “Have you seen her? Three years old, perhaps accompanied by a small dragon—”

“Ah, so,” the witch said. “I just may have news of those. They belong to you?”

“My daughter,” Irene said. “Where is she? I must reach her before—”

The witch looked Irene in the face. The witch was an ugly old crone, hunched and dirty, with a wart on her nose. “Go to my hut yonder, enter the cage there, and lock yourself in,” she said.

Irene tried to resist this ridiculous directive, but found herself compelled. The witch’s talent was instant hypnotism, or something stronger; Irene had to obey.

She walked to the hut, entered it, and found the cage inside. She got into it and drew the door closed, hearing the click of its lock.

Now that she had done the witch’s bidding, Irene found the compulsion relieved. She was in control of herself again. But she was locked in, and the wooden bars of the cage were too strong for her to break. She had a knife, but knew it would take a long time to saw through one of these bars.

Well, she could cope with that! She dropped a seed on the floor. “Grow!”

The seed sprouted brightly. It was a fire fern. In moments it had set fire to the cage and was burning through several bars.

While she waited, hunched in the corner farthest from the blaze, Irene kept busy. She grew an octopus plant, which she knew would do her bidding. When the witch entered the hut, she would become captive herself. As an added precaution, Irene sprouted a club moss so she could arm herself better.